St. Wendelin of Trier

Born about 554; died probably in 617.
His earliest biographies, two in Latin and two in German, did not
appear until after 1417. Their narrative is the following:
Wendelin was the son of a Scottish king; after a piously spent
youth he secretly left his home on a pilgrimage to Rome. On his
way back he settled as a hermit in Westricht in the Diocese of
Trier. When a great landowner blamed him for his idle life he
entered this lord's service as a herdsman. Later a miracle obliged
this lord to allow him to return to his solitude. Wendelin then
established a company of hermits from which sprang the Benedictine
Abbey of Tholey. He was consecrated abbot about 597, according to
the later legends. Tholey was apparently founded as a collegiate
body about 630. It is difficult to say how far the later
biographers are trustworthy. Wendelin was buried in his cell, and
a chapel was built over the grave. The small town of St. Wendel
grew up nearby. The saint's intercession was powerful in times of
pestilence and contagious diseases among cattle. When in 1320 a
pestilence was checked through the intercession of the saint,
Archbishop Baldwin of Trier had the chapel rebuilt. Baldwin's
successor, Boemund II, built the present beautiful Gothic church,
dedicated in 1360 and to which the saint's relics were
transferred; since 1506 they have rested in a stone sarcophagus.
Wendelin is the patron saint of country people and herdsmen and is
still venerated in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. He is
represented in art as a youth, or as a bearded man, with a
shepherd's bag and a book in one hand and a shepherd's crook in
the other; about him feed lambs, cattle, and swine, while a crown
and a shield are placed at his feet. St. Wendelin is not mentioned
in the Roman Martyrology, but his feast is observed in the Diocese
of Trier on 22 October.